Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/315

312 How often during that period of fervour and of heart-burning, must we be forced to shrink within ourselves with all the mortifying consciousness of unreturned affection, of ill-placed confidence, of too kind, and hence erroneous, judgment. The time while such ordeals are being passed, and such lessons being learned, cannot be one of much happiness.

Is its successor better off? Surely no. Look at the arduous exertion required of middle life; the thronging anxieties that spring up for others more than for ourselves; the constant downfal of our best-laid projects; the disappointment attending on the result of those which had mocked us with success; the weariness which gradually steals over the mind; the daily increasing sense of the worthlessness of every thing; the mournful looking back on the many friends who have parted from our side, some gone down to the grave, but more parted from us by the estrangement of cooled attachments and jarring interest. We have lost, too, all those fresh and beautiful emotions which, if they could not make a world of their own, at least flung their glory over the actual one. These are departed, to return no more; and in their places have come discontent, suspicion, indifference, and, worst of all, worldliness. Through